OS X El Capitan Available to Download Now for All Mac Users

Apple has released OS X El Capitan as a free update to all Mac users. The new version of system software is officially versioned as OS X 10.11, and the final build number is 15A284. Users can start the download now from the App Store using the direct link below.

OS X El Capitan brings performance updates and improvements to the Mac operating system, a including a new system font, split screen view, adjustments to the Mission Control window manager, improvements to Spotlight search, and various enhancements to bundled Mac apps including Mail, Safari, Notes, Maps, Photos, and Safari. The OS X El Capitan update should offer particularly worthwhile refinements to Mac users currently running OS X Yosemite.

Any Mac that is capable of running OS X Yosemite or OS X Mavericks is supported and can run OS X El Capitan. If you haven’t done so already, it may be a good time to prepare your Mac for OS X El Capitan installation, but at the very least be sure to back up the Mac before installing any system software update.

Download OS X El Capitan

All Mac users who wish to download OS X El Capitan must do so from the Mac App Store, where it is available as a free download from Apple:

Updating to OS X El Capitan

Users who wish to create a bootable USB flash drive installer of OS X El Capitan should do so before installing the release, as the installer app will remove itself upon successful completion of the software update. Instructions on creating a bootable USB install drive for OS X El Capitan final are here. Using a bootable installer is the best way to perform a clean install of OS X El Capitan.

Run the “Install OS X El Capitan” installer app if it hasn’t launched itself and agree to the Terms of Service

Select the target hard drive to install OS X El Capitan onto, if you’re upgrading your current disk operating system you’d locate the name of the current boot drive, which is typically “Macintosh HD”, then click on “Install

Note that OS X 10.11.1 is currently available as a beta release as well for users who are participating in either the Mac developer program or public beta program. There is no known timeline for OS X 10.11.1 being released to the general public.

Are you downloading OS X El Capitan? Let us know if you run into any hiccups with the update, or even if things go smoothly in the comments.

86 Comments

Disappointed. I get the message ‘ITEM NOT AVAILABLE’ ‘The item you’ve requested is not currently available in the UK store’ – thanks Apple – I need to make a Bootable USB to restore my OS after Sierra messed up my MacBookPro. Now I cant get a bootable ISO of any flavour of OS to install over a new SSD (Cost 280 quid). Since the platform itself is Early 2007 model, it is no longer supported either in UK apparantly. Apple have just lost a big fan.

I have an early 2009 iMac 24″ model. I can not update to Sierra it seems. But for 2 days I can not find El Capitan so that I can get this mac to the latest OS. I didn’t update to 10.11 at all. I am on 10.9.5

I get an error at the iTunes store stating that El Capitan (base 10.11) is not available in the US store. I would have figured it would sense that I can’t update to Sierra and provide the latest that I can update to…

Anyone have any idea where I can get 10.11 base El Capitan ? After that I believe I can update to 10.11.6 …

How do you recover or install to a blank drive, as if you replaced the drive, for example? Without being able to boot to the utilities disk, it no longer seems possible. Control R used to work. Screw Apple and all the new BS they put people through. I have a bootable disk and it says it’s corrupted. Won’t let me download it again on a mac with 10.3 already on it. Apple really sucks these days. If you lose a drive, even with a time machine backup you are screwed and time machine is worthless.

I was able to install el capitan to my ’09 PowerMac, but have had no success at all with my Early 2008 24-inch iMac.
Just the spinning wheel and no change to the Download button, i.e. it will not change appearance to “Downloading”.
This is with multiple attempts over several days (and nights).

I am half way through the el capitan update and am now up to the install section and it tells me I don’t have enough disk space on Macintosh HD. I can’t get back to anything to free up space. I have tried restarting & it takes me back to the same install screen but I have nowhere to go. How do I fix this?

Where are all my photos ? It says something about iPhoto i click where they should be it says I need to upgrade to iPhoto but I can’t connect anymore to App Store, what the heck happened? I just lost all my phone content after trying to upgrade to the iOS 9.1 , huge mistake!
any help with the photos?

Hi. I just downloaded to El Capitan last night, but I couldn’t continue at all because it said “There is not enough free space on Macintosh”. Could someone help me how to erase some of my files in this state so I can continue?

I updated to El cap two days ago. It was a difficult process as it kept crashing and loading a grey screen with my picture replaced with a ? and saying update needed. I turned it off that night and the next day my login picture is back and I can get into my Mac no problems. However… I cannot do anything on it now. Every time I open an application/internet it crashes and I have to force quit everything. Anyone have any clue what I’m meant to do? It’s becoming very frustrating as I can’t do anything on my MacBook.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Hi, I’m running yosemite and want to upgrade to el capitan. For that I simply click on the download button, but nothing happens… wheel is turning a top left of the app store window I can waut for hours nothing works. Can you help (of course stop / start of Mac has been tried :-))

Have you seen the “El Capitan installation failed related to essentials.pkg” error message before?

I ran into this and fixed it by reinstalling with OS X from a boot disk, but some users say they had to pull out the RAM if they upgraded it themselves. Weird error with Essentials.pkg don’t you think?

Since updating to El Capitan, my wifi keeps disconnecting and then later says no IP Address. I’ve turned off my wifi and turned it back on, unplugged my router and restarted it and the only time I can connect to the internet is when I first log on to my computer for about 20 minutes before it disconnects me. I’Ve tried via Ethernet, and although it says I’m connected, there’s still no access to the Internet and no IP Address. In addition, my computer is freezing up or taking forever if not get stuck on a website (probably due to the wifi disconnecting and I’m having issues shutting down where my computer gets stuck and forever has a black screen with the pinwheel rotating and not turning off. I’ve had to do a hard shutdown quite a few times. I’ve done a virus check and apple hardware test and there seems to be no problems. All these problems started after updating to El Capitan. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!!!

I updated to El Capitan fine. However, now I have no desktop at all and finder “quits unexpectedly” Any help is greatly appreciated… I lost quite a few important documents and pictures doing this update if those desktop files are lost forever…

I been on Mac mini and have filled form Apple ID to download El Capitan since 10-00am this morning and I haven’t got my download yet,this is a disgrace that this is happening here in Northern Ireland ,and is the third time I tried for download El Capitan,I’ve read other mail on your site and they boast it taken one hour or ninety minutes,is Apple feeding of my service provider an giving me nothing.

I successfully downloaded EL Cap in about 1hr…though I had done a complete system clean a day prior with MacKeeper. However it managed to completely knock out the outgoing mail server of one of my 3 accounts. We have satellite broadband which issues static IP addresses to the user computers and when we tried to re-configure the email account we were blocked at every turn. You will need to work directly with your web hosting service to unblock your IP addresses and re-configure your email accounts if this occurs.

::sigh:: my dl has been stuck waiting for the last 24 hrs. on the app store it says ‘waiting’ on launchpad it shows as ‘paused’. i’ve tried shutdown & rebooting. Still the same. my mac pro is 13″ early 2011 but has a lot of mem coz I use an external hard drive. do i just leave it alone and let it do whatever… ?

I was able to dowload and install El Capitan without any problems. But when i was on Yosemite, Safari 9.0 is having a hard time connecting/opening a webpage.
When El Capitan was installed, Safari was teally fast within the first few hours and now its very slow again.
Others apps/programs connects to the net very well. Please help?! Thanks!

Fresh download of OS 10.11. onto MBA.
Now unable to open iPhoto. Suggestion posted is to DL latest software.-> Then I receive a message SW is not available in US. ???????
On App store, “one update available” ver 9.6.1 … -> I receive message “This item is temporarily unavailable.”

I’ve tried to download El Cap several times without success. The download keeps pausing…which apparently is shorthand for stuck. I tried using launchpad to remove the partial download and then tried to download again, and again….no progress. It starts the download, very slowly, and then gets stuck. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe I will just stick with Yosemite for awhile without the update :)

I am having the same problem. The download button is shaded out saying pause, or waiting. Have fast broadband, the file should take minutes. There used to be an option to download only, to install later.

Think I will go with the previous comment & stick with yosemite for now.

I’ve downloaded el captian.dmg file thru a torrent (since app store is too slow in my part of the world) and now I am stuck unable to do upgrade using the dmg from yosemite to el capitan. Any suggestions!?

I’ve downloaded el captian.dmg file thru a torrent (since app store is too slow in my part of the world) and now I am stuck unable to do upgrade using the dmg from yosemite to el capitan. Any suggestions!?

downloaded el capitan at 5pm yesterday and went to work. when i got back five hours later, it was stuck on about 90%. after another hour with no progress, i restarted the computer; then it was stuck at 60%. i then just left it alone hoping it would sort itself out but it has been ELEVEN HOURS and nothing has changed. this is not a matter of impatience on my part, it’s completely ridiculous.
i have a 15″ macbook pro bought in mid-2014 with more than enough space, so i don’t understand the issue. trying to install this update has rendered my computer completely unusable.

I just want to ask if anyone is having trouble downloading from the Mac App Store, because when I download any App it just take way to much time (I download a 5mb App an it took 3 minutes, when I have a 6mb internet), I’ve try everything, from turning off something from the Key Chain, changing DNS and even cleaning all of my cache!

If someone could help me and anyone else with the same problem ASAP, it would be great.

PD(or S, IDK): I’m from Costa Rica, my main language is Spanish so forgive any grammar mistakes, hope you all understand me.

I had the same problem. I deleted a bunch of files (mainly podcasts, which seem to pile up on the harddrive) and went from 2 to 14 Gb of free space. Then I closed the OS X installer and reopened it again. That seemed to do the trick.

Can not download and install it.. :( after entering login info it spins for a few sec and says “Unexpected error occurred while signing in: AMD:Action?guid=C82A14…”.. Any tips? close/restart doesn’t help.. I was on beta6 and couldn’t even see there is an update

Downloaded El Capitan fine overnight.
Progressed to instal – OK.
During install which had taken over two hours noticed spinning wheel of death on the white screen with the loading bar not making progress.
How do I save this situation and I am not into programming – either to go back or move forward to install completely?

I live in a country with limited internet. This is one of the dumbest things i have experienced installing a new OS upgrade. It downloads almost 6 gb the file is some 6.08 and then says error has occurred. Then I have to restart the entire dowloaded. This has already happened 2 times. I have to say after waiting like half a day this is the most frustrating thing.. can’t apple get this right?

Worried that my Soundflower doesn’t work any more – when I checked out the forums – it was known that El Capitan had problems with quite a few apps – wish I hadn’t updated now but you can’t check out every single app with every upgrade can you ?

When I upgraded to El Capitan, I suddenly had an upgrade from last March for iPhoto sitting in my App Store upgrades. I’ve never had iPhoto on this machine. I bought it in the summer and did not restore from back up. Very strange.

You can also click and hold on the full screen button (button next to minimize) until the side of the screen can be selected. Then slide the window to the left or right. Afterwards, select another window you would like to be in split mode.

All that was available on the App Store Update page was an update to Safari 9.0. This install wouldn’t complete with the usual prompted restart, so I did a manual restart.
The OSX still doesn’t appear on the Update Page as in the past, but I’m downloading from the “home page”.
I’m guessing that’s designed to prevent users from installing OSX before they’re rally ready.

in the past, when an Apple “on line” update destroyed functionality, i’d found that applying a COMBO update *usually* restored such. usually (still no remote scanners or older Airport Express support).

Yes correct, the GM build is earlier than the final build (15A284). Users on the GM build of OS X 10.11 can follow the direct download link and get the new version of El Capitan from the App Store. The latest version will appear under the “purchased” tab as it downloads.

This website and third-party tools use cookies for functional, analytical, and advertising purposes. By continuing to browse the site, closing this banner, scrolling this webpage, or clicking a link, you agree to these cookies. You can review our privacy policy for additional information.I AcceptPrivacy Policy